Wordless Wednesday: The Taste of Summer

Linked up to Only Passionate Curiosity

Father's Day Interviews

Since we did this on Mother's Day, of course we have to do on Father's Day, too!

What is something dad always says to you?
Kaytie: Have a good day!
Nate: clean your room
Daniel: I love you!
Abbie: that I'm cute

What makes dad happy?
Kaytie: candy/sweets
Nate: when I clean my room
Daniel: doing what he says
Abbie: chocolate

What makes dad sad?
Kaytie: disobeying
Nate: when I disobey him
Daniel: when I disobey him
Abbie: no chocolate

How does your dad make you laugh?

Kaytie: he likes to play-wrestle with us
Nate: saying something funny
Daniel: tickling me
Abbie: tickling me

What was your dad like as a child?

Kaytie: probably like Nate and Daniel
Nate: curious
Daniel: he was awkward
Abbie: he was funny

How old is your dad?

Kaytie: I don't know
Nate: 39 I think
Daniel: 63
Abbie: 36

How tall is your dad?

Kaytie: I don't know
Nate: 2 feet I think
Daniel: 36 feet
Abbie: 3 feet

What is his favorite thing to do?

Kaytie: Watch tv and play on his computer at the same time
Nate: play computer games
Daniel: play on his computer
Abbie: work

What does your dad do when you're not around?

Kaytie: I don't know, you're going to have to ask him that question
Nate: be at work
Daniel: I don't know, I think he watches tv
Abbie: watch tv

If your dad becomes famous, what will it be for?

Kaytie: Working with batteries
Nate: cooking or grilling
Daniel: grilling
Abbie: being the greatest dad

What is your dad really good at?

Kaytie: florist arrangements
Nate: grilling
Daniel: working
Abbie: working

What is your dad not very good at?

Kaytie: I don't know
Nate: making stuff... like crafts
Daniel: singing
Abbie: board games

What does your dad do for a job?

Kaytie: He works at Battery Joe
Nate: He is a corporate manager for Battery Joe
Daniel: He works at Battery Joe corporate office
Abbie: He works at Battery Joe

What is your dad's favorite food?

Kaytie: steak
Nate: candy. He likes anything that's sweet
Daniel: pizza
Abbie: chocolate

What makes you proud of your dad?

Kaytie: That he is the corporate marketing manager
Nate: that you can rely on him all the time
Daniel: having a job so we can have money
Abbie: because he's great and nice

What do you and your dad do together?

Kaytie: we go places
Nate: play computer games
Daniel: go places
Abbie: snuggle

How are you and your dad the same?

Kaytie: we both have brown hair, we both have glasses and we both have blue eyes
Nate: we are both boys and basically we are completely the same except he has brownish hair
Daniel: we both like technology
Abbie: we are not the same! At all!

How are you and your dad different?

Kaytie: I'm a girl and he's a boy
Nate: his hair is brown and mine isn't and that's about the only thing
(isn't that the truth!)
Daniel:  he has glasses and I don't
Abbie: because of our hair

How do you know your dad loves you?

Kaytie: because he works for us
Nate: because he's my dad
Daniel: when he kisses me
Abbie: he gives me kisses and hugs me

What does your dad like most about your mom?

Kaytie: that she's sweet
Nate: your hair
Daniel: she does school with us so he doesn't have to do it
Abbie: because you are nice and sweet

Where is your dad's favorite place to go?

Kaytie: places with his family
Nate: Home Depot
Daniel: to work at Battery Joe
Abbie: Sonic

Happy Father's Day!!!

M is for Middle School

Grades are a little "fuzzy" in our homeschool. We use the mastery method in most of our work, so while a kid could be doing "5th grade" math and reading at an "8th grade" level, they could be spelling on a "3rd grade" level, their handwriting could look like a 1st graders, and how exactly does one assess the grade level of what we are doing in history and science? In the beginning of our educational journey, I assigned grades by how many years they had been "doing school". They all started learning their numbers and letters the fall before they turned four, so they have always been a grade ahead of their same-age peers, at least, the ones who would be in traditional schools where one is not allowed to begin kindergarten until after their fifth birthday.
But then, we started joining groups of other kids in things like sports, co-op, Cub Scouts, and church which are usually divided by grades rather than ages. This posed a problem, because their dad strongly preferred that they "socialize" with kids their age, and not be constantly forced into older groups, especially since our kids are all on the small size for height and weight. So our kids know that they have two different grades. The grade in school, and the social grade that we use in placing ourselves in groups. It can get complicated, but they don't seem to mind.

At any rate, I said all of that to say, Kaytie is starting 6th grade in the fall, and in our area of the country, that means Middle School.
When I first realized this, a few weeks ago, I was somewhat at a loss. We have gotten into a cozy rhythm in our school life, and I liked it. But I had a vague feeling that Middle School should probably entail a stepping up, so to speak, taking it up a notch in my expectations of Kaytie's work. I don't want High School to take us completely by surprise!
So I started asking around in the various homeschool forums where I chat; just trying to gather up some sort of an idea of what 6th grade should look like, and then translate that into what 6th grade should look like for US. Because I have no intention of giving up our Us School style. The answers I got back all fell into two categories: writing essays/research papers; and more independence. This didn't help me much. :)

Fortunately, this was when I remembered that I own a super-cool book called "Home Learning Year by Year" by Rebecca Rupp, which I bought long ago and used to use often. It gives a basic overview of what a kid should be learning in each grade, but more with the point of how to pull together your own curriculum and not so much for pigeon-holing your child into a grade. I used it a lot when I was learning to pull together my own curriculum.
I read through what she had to say about 6th grade, and the plan just fell together. This is what Kaytie's 6th grade year will look like.
Kaytie will finish Delta math. She will do level 4 in Rod and Staff Grammar. She will continue copying Bible verses, focusing on correct letter formation, punctuation, and spelling. She will finish All About Spelling levels 3 and 4. For History, she will listen to the read-alouds, complete projects, write reports, give oral reports, and read assigned books and narrate them. (We are finishing up American History: from the Alamo to however far we can get before the school year ends...) For Science, she will join in our chemistry study, writing reports and learning about the scientific process and writing up experiments. In Geography she will draw, map, and write reports about the various things we will learn. In Latin, she will continue with Visual Latin.  She will continue work on Adventus. She will finish IEW SWI A. She will finish another level of Bible Study Guide for All Ages. She will work her way through Logic to the Rescue (which is free for Kindle) and The Fallacy Detective. She will work on learning: cooking, baking, menu planning, shopping, budgeting, laundry, mending, and personal care. She will chose a project to pursue for daily passion time.
We learned about passion time on Blog She Wrote and are tweaking the idea to fit our Us School style. Kaytie picked horses and botany to start with. I told her that she will devote 30 minutes to an hour to a topic each day. She and I and her dad are coming up with ideas of ways she can do that. She has lots of good suggestions and so does her daddy, but none of them are solid yet. I expect to be talking more about that in the future.

As for independence, I feel we are on track for that. She has already taken steps toward taking more responsibility for her own work. She has a list of what she needs to do each day and I can count on her to get it done. She has started taking her work into the living room or outside where she can focus without the other kids' noise, then she brings it back to me when she needs help or she is ready for me to check it. When we work as a group, she can take some leadership and organize science experiments or history projects. She often takes the initiative to create her own projects related to what she has learned.
All in all, she is excited about her foray into Middle School. She is most excited about her passion time and home ec. She has more ideas and plans about home ec. than I do, so far.

This post is linked up with Blogging Through the Alphabet at Ben and Me.

Schoolhouse Review Crew: Christianity Cove

I think I have talked before about how we do a sort of "circle time" every morning at the start of every school day. The way it looks often changes, depending on what we need, and I am always on the lookout for ways to add to it and make it better. Well, lately, thanks to a review from Christianity Cove, we have added lessons on learning about the Lord's Prayer, and some science experiments that demonstrate Bible principles.
 Christianity Cove is a company that offers Sunday School and/or Children's Church materials and ideas without breaking your budget. They have plenty to offer, but I'm going to just focus on the two that we used.

The Lord's Prayer lesson pack is a 35 page PDF full of ideas on how to teach kids the Lord's prayer and what it means. It has object lessons, games, crafts, snacks, worksheets, and even a song to help you memorize the prayer. We added an activity into each morning circle time, and it took us about two weeks to work our way through the entire thing. There is a materials list at the beginning of each lesson that made prep easy, and there was nothing required in any of the lessons that we didn't already have or couldn't pick up easily and cheaply at the grocery store. The snacks, of course, were hands down the children's favorites. My kids are all between the ages of 10 and 6 and have grown up in Children's Church, often taught by me, so some of the lessons were, they thought, a little simplistic for them. There were some eye-rolls, I'm not going to lie. But for a slightly younger crowd, or for a bigger, more "mixed" audience, they would work great.

The Bible Science Experiments is also an easily-downloaded PDF. It contains 25 different experiments. They are sorted into five different types: Using Light; Using Color; Using Motion; Using Magnetism; and Using Gravity. Each experiment is laid out in the same easy-to-follow, easy-to-read way and includes the related Scripture, the materials, the steps to follow, what is supposed to happen, the scientific explanation for the kids, and finally, the Biblical application. Again, the materials are the sort of thing most people have around the house, so there is not a lot of prep work required. We enjoyed just working our way through the document, playing with each experiment in turn. On several of them, I let the big kids set up the experiments and perform them for the little ones. Some we just all did together. It was a really a lot of fun!
We are print-scrooges around here, so we just used both of these products straight off the computer. Since they are both PDFs, it would be fairly simple to put them on your tablet or e-reader as well.
You can buy the Lord's Prayer Packet for $39.99, although it seems like it is on sale right now for $19.99. And Bible Science Experiments is $25. In my opinion, these prices are little high for just home use, but are a better deal if you are going to use them in a ministry setting, especially since they are non-consumable.

Other Crew Members reviewed many different products from Christianity Cove and you can read all of those on the Blog.

The kids came running in, yelling, "Come look, Mom! Come look!" They wanted me to watch a sky-writing airplane that was drawing smiley faces in the sky. It was very cool. It reminded me of the old song: Blue Skies

Trees

The girls enjoy dressing up. And their creativity often surprises me. Any sort of recyclable material is fought over in our house. It is a major offence for me to throw away boxes, milk jugs, paper that comes in packages... someone always has a use for these things.

Abbie asked for an apple. I thought she wanted a snack. But really it was just a prop. It's hard to be an apple tree if you don't have any apples.